“No? Then I can—”
“Not you.” Adra made a small motion with his head, toward the arena. “Rian.”
And that was all she needed.
Before I totally understood what had happened, Rian had shed her human form and dissolved into a cloud of sparkling mist. And flown over the balcony, diving straight into the tiny form of her lover, so far below. And disappeared.
“What can she do?” the consul asked, leaning farther over the balcony.
“Watch and see,” Adra said, right before we all had to fall back, when a scaly head came tearing through the balcony opening, ripping off chunks of stone, bending metal girders like aluminum foil, and sending a wash of dust and a blast of fiery-hot breath at us.
But not fire. Casanova wasn’t facing a dragon, because dragons were fey, not demon. And because he wasn’t that lucky.
And then Adra, who alone hadn’t bothered to move, made a slight motion, and the thing pulled back, rejoining the mass of squirming, snakelike heads on the dinosaur-like body below.
At least, I assumed that it did, but since Mircea had dragged me almost to the door to the room inside, I couldn’t see much.
“What is it?” I asked him, trying to see.
“Hydra.”
“How do you kill it?”
“I don’t know.” His jaw was tight. Mircea wasn’t used to being a bystander. Wasn’t used to having to watch someone else fight while he stood helpless on the sidelines. Wasn’t used to being the one without power in any situation.
Welcome to my world, I thought, and then Marlowe was beckoning us over.
He had rejoined the consul, who had returned to her former position as soon as the thing was gone. And appeared to be having the time of her life, kneeling on the edge of the precipice, because the railing was now mostly gone, too. There were just a few bits of curled metal and broken glass here and there, and a lot of open air with wind blowing her long dark hair around.
“It can be done,” Marlowe said, looking up as we tried to find a clear spot.
“How?” I asked, staring down at that thing. And searching for Casanova, who I didn’t see at all.
“Hercules did it—at least according to myth.”
“Casanova is not Hercules,” Mircea said grimly.
“Hercules was an idiot,” the consul said. “Don’t go for the heads.”
“What else do you go for?” Marlowe asked as Mircea kicked some glass out of the way to make us a spot.
“The heart. It only has one of those.”
“According to myth, the body would live as long as a single head remained.”
“Have you ever known anything that can live without a heart?” she demanded. “Including us?”
“No, but . . .” Marlowe looked around. He was still in the rumpled reddish suit from yesterday, only it was more rumpled now. Like his windblown curls, which were flying everywhere. And those dark eyes, which seemed to be having trouble deciding what to focus on. “I’m beginning to think my expertise . . . may need an upgrade,” he finally said.
“You really think that’ll work?” I asked the consul, my heart in my throat.
She looked up, and for once, for maybe the first time ever, she was smiling. No, she was grinning. “Tell him to carve it out and we’ll see.”
Sounded like a plan to me.
If we could find him. But it was like he’d simply vanished. The creature seemed to think so, too, prowling around the arena, the many heads stretching in all directions. Including into the stands in a few cases, lunging at demons who spilled back out of the way, causing what looked like tidal flows in the crowd.
But there was no Casanova.